I am truly troubled and with OPEC
distressed,
OPEC's major crisis is no longer
suppressed,
The market is stagnant, the price of
crude oil depressed.

That bit of doggerel is the opening stanza of a poem written by Mani
Said al Oteiba, Oil Minister of the United Arab Emirates, to
commemorate the marathon twelve-day meeting in London of the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries that ended last week. The
minister's lament reflected the mood of desperation that led...